Can Source Do it? Created 16 years ago2008-11-10 00:11:17 UTC by Loremaster

Good morning,

I joined the board and open this topic because we are in bit of a pinch; we have to showcase our project in its current state to investors within four weeks and the engine core of our stuff is not yet ready and won't be in time. Though we can easily explain it, all sides would feel better having something to watch and play.

So I try to whip it up by way of a Mod with an established engine. Artwork, sounds, levels, actors and models are ready in various compatible formats for Source, so we can showcase that "in action" in HL2. But I'd also like to add some bells and whistles, e.g. parts of our intricate and higly flexible story (which hitherto has been our main selling point), so here are my questions:

Are complex, multiple choice, branching conversations (PC-NPC) conversations possible?
Is it possible to influence long-term NPC behaviour by the course a conversation takes?
Is map-branching possible, i.e. if you killed Lord High'n'Mighty during the Mission "Castle of Some-Weird-Fantasy-Name-Or-Other" you get to a different mission than you would hadn't you killed him?
If this is not possible, can anyone point me to a fairly recent game which can?

Thanks in advance.

Source can definately do all that. I recommend you read up on the I/O system and some of the core game-controlling entities.

Game_UI will let players control things other than himself, it could be used to control a conversation tree, though really a professionally coded one would be the desired option.

All of the logic entities serve a specific function and a can be used to set up advanced, dynamically changing events.

It's a lot to do in four weeks without prior Source experience, though.

I'm not 100% positive about the source entities, But i know goldsource has a good Change target system. Source's system would be as good, if not better for that task.

Thank you for your answers.

Yes, I discovered it's quite a beast to ride, but the graphics look good. For the rest - we are busy little beavers and may pull it off within the given time. We can adress Source via C++, intending to use it for handling dialogue choices and effects. We are looking into interconnecting VCDs to actually represent the dialogue. Perhaps this sounds even wilder to you than to me since I have just begun to explore this thing.

If we won't pull it off, we can at least showcase the artwork.

@Tetsu: Goldsource? Is that the old HL1-engine? I don't think this would be up to at least fairly recent graphical standards. Our presentation would then... disappoint some people...

Thomas

I was just saying that the old engine had a way do to it.
So the new engine has to have a way as well.
And it'll look better.

You'll be amazed at what you can do to the GLDSRC engine before breaking it, but you're already working with the source engine.